No One Around

The ruined temple stood tall despite the way time tried to eat away at it. Ancient tapestries reduced to barely hanging discolored rags, and once vibrant murals were dull. The dust was thick, and although she knew it wasn’t sanitary, she couldn’t help but run a finger along a wall. Parts of the ceiling had crumbled in, and left debris over the ground. She walked up towards the altar and saw that the moon skylight was strangely unaffected by the ruin around it. Umbra could see twinkling stars, and the moon beginning to peak over the lip of the hole.

“And who might you be?”

Umbra’s mind froze; the plan was already falling apart, she was supposed to be here before Melinda so she could destroy the ritual area.

With her back still turned, she grimaced. Destroying the altar would have made the fight easier, but it wasn’t too terrible of an outcome. All she had to do was either grab her cousin’s blessing and escape, or beat Melinda in a fight. How bad could it be?

Umbra turned and crossed her arms to project an air of confidence. She nearly faltered when she saw Melinda; the woman’s skin was ashen, and her veins had a sickly black color to them. Her movements were too fast, too jerky. Melinda looked at Umbra in slight confusion, like she recognized Umbra’s face, but couldn’t quite place her.

“I’m here to stop you. I believe you have something that doesn’t belong to you?”

“Oh? You mean this?” Melinda produced a glowing, golden stone and mockingly assessed it. “ Hmm… Sorry, I think I’m going to keep this.” She pocketed it and copied Umbra’s stance. They stared for a while, neither wanting to blink or look away first.

“Dang, well, I guess that’s that.” Umbra shrugged and put her hand behind her back. “ Or is it?” she moved her hand again to show the glowing stone she now held. Melinda’s eyes widened in bewilderment, and she quickly checked her pocket.

"How did you--"

“Okay, thanks, bye!” Umbra went to fly through one of the holes in the ceiling, when a searing pain wrapped around her ankle. She let out a yelp of pain, and looked down to see a whip made of fire. It burned through her clothes, and the scent of burnt flesh filled her nose. The burns marring her skin were healed at the same rate they appeared, which caused her safely available mana reserve to steadily drip away. Her clock had begun.

“I don’t think so!” Melinda tugged Umbra back down, and slammed her into the ground. The impact was enough to make the air rush out of her lungs and stone pop out of her hand. She tried to reach for it as she gasped for air. The mana consumed to heal herself was like trickling water in the back of her head.

The shadow of a boot passed over her as Melinda went to stomp her face. Umbra was barely able to roll away in time, making sure to shoot some force magic at the stone so it flew further away.

Melinda went for another stomp, and instead of rolling away, Umbra caught the other woman’s foot. She snapped it to the side, and heard the crack of a bone. The screech Melinda let out was inhuman, like a mandrake that had been freshly pulled from the soil.

Umbra rolled and brought Melinda down with her; she needed Melinda in recovery mode, so she could gain an opening to stand. Before she could get very far, Melinda suddenly leapt onto her and wrapped her hands around Umbra’s throat. Warmth oozed down her neck as jagged claws dug into the skin.

Umbra scratched at Melinda’s hands; this wasn't how this was supposed to go. They were supposed to have sassy banter back and forth before exchanging a few blows. Then Melinda would pour her heart out to Umbra, and having shared a deep understanding, Umbra would convince Melinda to stop what she's doing. Melinda would go to therapy, and the world would be returned to normal.

As Umbra struggled, she grabbed onto Melinda's arm and felt something familiar. The smooth surfaces of other blessings, already crudely shoved into her skin and corrupted. Her lungs burned and her eyes water, and finally, the fear for her own life overrode the want to not kill others. Without conscious thought, her magic covered her fist like a gauntlet and she punched through Melinda’s chest.

Melinda went limp, and Umbra quickly pushed the body off. She greedily gulped down the cool night air, and took a moment to let her heart calm down. She took a moment to look at her hand, and realized that instead of blood, there was black gunk that covered her.

Umbra looked over and saw Melinda’s unmoving body, and decided she didn’t really care. Her safe mana was nearly gone anyway, she accidentally put way more than she needed into that punch. She needed to go.

With the bruises on her torso still healing, Umbra carefully moved towards the stone. She crouched down to pick it up, and stared at it in her palm for a moment. Everything she had been through, everything she had done, was for this.

She went to stand up, but stopped short. Her eyebrows furrowed and her head tilted as she looked at the structure in front of her. It was strange; it seemed to be partially buried, and built like a dome, except there were two large holes next to each other. She squinted her eyes as she tried to remember what the shape reminded her of, and her mouth fell open when it clicked.

It was a giant skull sticking out of the ground. A skull that could only belong to one thing; a Guardian. She knew they were real! As she thought about bragging that she saw a real Guardian, a boot landed heavily on the back of her head.

Although Umbra could recover faster than a normal person, it was still too slow. She was roughly turned onto her back, and the collar of her shirt was snatched to hold her up.

“I have never met a more idiotic, foolhardy, insolent child in my life.” Each adjective was punctuated with a jab to her face, before Melinda leaned back and summoned an ethereal spear. Umbra let out a loud, echoing scream as Melinda stabbed through Umbra’s thigh deep into the ground. Umbra’s hand instinctively went to pull at it, when another spear drove into her shoulder. A third and fourth followed, and the next thing she knew, she was pinned like a butterfly. Melinda swiped the blessing from Umbra’s hand.

She glanced back and forth between Umbra and the stone a few times before she snapped her fingers. Through the blood leaking into her eyes, Umbra’s gaze was entirely focused on the hole in the middle of Melinda’s chest that was healing from the black sludge that crawled around inside of it.

“Now I recognize you! You’re that tool’s cousin!” she threw her head back and laughed.

Her laughter continued as she turned and stepped towards the altar, and in a desperate attempt to stall for time, Umbra weakly called out.

“Why are you even doing this?”

Melinda paused in her steps, her laughter suddenly gone.

“Why? Of all the chances you had to ask, you choose now to ask why? Does it even matter at this point?”

Umbra did her best to keep her eyes trained on Melinda, and not glance at the moon skylight. How long would she need to distract for the moon to pass over?

“You’re going to destroy the world, aren’t you? I at least want to know why.”

“Oh, I’m not going to destroy it. I want to rule it. I want the power I was denied at birth, I want–” She paused and glanced up over her shoulder to the sky. Realization dawned on her face.

“Oh, oh was that the best you could come up with? That’s so sad. This isn’t even fun anymore." Melinda turned and reached the altar. She set the stone down in the middle of her alchemical circle, and went to work with the rest of the preparations.

While her attention was elsewhere, Umbra tightly shut her eyes and focused on that untapped, uncontrollable mana inside of her. Very quickly, almost like dabbing a finger on the surface of a still lake, she snagged a small amount. The spear inside her left shoulder began moving out on its own, albeit painfully slow. It faded from existence once it was out, and trying to keep her ragged breathing to a minimum, she quickly started to pull the rest out with her hands. She collapsed to the ground and began crawling to the eye socket sticking out of the sand.

Purple lightning from a clear sky started to strike on the altar, and Umbra nearly froze in horror. She continued to push herself as she crawled impossibly slow; sand entered her still healing wounds, and she knew she must be leaving a trail of blood behind her.

Melinda started cackling, and Umbra was too afraid to see what the other woman had done. She had finally reached the Guardian, and managed to shove herself inside the skull.

Umbra took a breath to steel herself before she reached into her mana well again. The moment she tapped it, she rapped her knuckles against the skull like it was a door. She hadn’t noticed the sounds of flesh melding and bones cracking and reforming, or the many screeches of conjured monsters. It felt like an eternity had passed when her own power bounced back to her, like it was regurgitated.

Her heart dropped into the pit of her stomach, but she tried again, this time with more urgency. A shorter waiting time, although the response was still the same. Tears flowed down her face as she tried again and again, her magic flashing like a healer’s trying to re-stabilize a heart.

“It won’t respond to you,” the voice that spoke was at once Melinda and not. There were new layers to it, like multiple versions of Melinda speaking at once.

Umbra shakily looked over her shoulder to see a twisted, lumbering monster kneeling to peer inside at her. She could not see the whole body; she did not want to.

“It only responds to Chosens, since it is a child of the Gods. You can still join me, you know,” a large hand was offered to her, and Umbra scurried back like a scared animal. Without looking away from the beast, Umbra started hitting the side of her fist against the skull to send more requests in.

Melinda sighed like a disappointed parent, and retracted her hand.

“It’s okay, you’ll come around. I’m off now,” she said so casually, like she hadn’t summoned an army of monsters and turned herself into one. As if she hadn’t stolen the powers of others, shoved them into her skin, and twisted them into something dark. Melinda took to the sky with her army, and silence fell like a curtain.

Even as the adrenaline left her body and her hand began to throb, she didn’t stop. It was only when she felt the briefest moment of connection that she stopped, her beaten down heart lifting with hope. A voice reverberated in her head.

“If you are facing a world-ending calamity, please contact the nearest Chosen to you for assistance. Thank you for your understanding.”

The connection ended.

Umbra stayed there frozen for a moment as blood rushed to her cheeks. A strange embarrassment rose inside her, like a child who cried for help and was told to be quiet. Then the first sob came out.

Umbra curled into a tight ball as her sobs overtook her. Her hands tangled themselves in her hair and tugged as she shouted.

Was this really it? Was this all she was meant to be? Why did she even let herself get swept away by her cousin’s illusions of grandeur?

Tremors racked her body as her muscles tensed and her teeth clenched so hard she thought they’d crack as she fought against the memories and the feelings flooding her brain.

It was nice to be needed, it was validating. The thought of there being a job only she could do was exhilarating, and people that she cared about actually believed in her. Umbra was given hope; hope that, despite all of her failures and shortcomings, they were right. That she could, and would, win.

Now, after biting off more than she could possibly hope to chew, she must choke on the consequences. Maybe letting go was the correct choice; she could lay down in the skull while what happened, happened, and she could let everyone believe she had died trying to stop it. A true hero's death.

Her cries died down as time passed, and when all that was left were a few sniffles, she blinked her eyes a few times. She looked around, and found her mind oddly clear. It was like a fog had been lifted; the worst case scenario that she had been so worried about had happened, and she was still here. All the pressure that had been building up for so long, the pressure that she ignored to make things easier, had been let out. All that was left was… Simmering anger. A pure, concentrated rage.

Guardians only responded to Chosens? What’s with that shit? Did they not think there might be a scenario where there are none?

The voices of people from various phases of Umbra’s life played in her mind as she stared at the inside of the skull; all of the warnings about her condition, that she may have an abnormally deep mana well, but that the mana couldn’t be safely channeled through her body and that her recuperation speed was slower.

If her body was too small for the mana, what about a Guardian’s?

She wiped her tear stained, dusty face and pushed herself to a sitting position. She laid her palms flat on the ground, and for the first time in her life, she let go.

The mana spread like thirsty roots searching for water throughout the Guardian’s body, and wound like vines around ancient bones. By the time the Guardian awoke and attempted to resist, it was already too late.

Her essence filled the body. Malleable bone grew like moss around her, and when she moved, the earth rumbled as the Guardian’s body attempted to mirror her actions. The eye sockets flickered before taking on a bright, pink glow.

The drag of mana was constant, like a river flowing to the sea. Umbra had no idea how much time she would have, but she did know one thing. Even if this drained every single drop of mana and killed her, she would see it to the end.

If an ancient Guardian erupts from the ground with no one around to hear it, does it even make a sound?